fatal attraction. the classical past at the beginning of the

Historia Constitucional
E-ISSN: 1576-4729
[email protected]
Universidad de Oviedo
España
di Bartolo, Daniele
FATAL ATTRACTION. THE CLASSICAL PAST AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTIONARY REPUBLIC (1792 - 93)
Historia Constitucional, núm. 16, 2015, pp. 1-18
Universidad de Oviedo
Oviedo, España
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FATAL ATTRACTION.
THE CLASSICAL PAST AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY REPUBLIC (1792-93)1
Daniele di Bartolomeo
Università degli Studi di Teramo
CONTENTS: I. INTRODUCTION: BACK TO THE PAST - II. THE FIRST FRENCH
REPUBLICANS FACE-TO-FACE WITH CLASSICAL REVOLUTIONS - III. THE
ANCIENTS IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE OF YEAR I - IV. CONCLUSION: A
TRICK OF FATE
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the image of the ancient
republics in the early months of the French Republic, with particular attention to
the debate that preceded the adoption of the Constitution of the Year I (24 June
1793) and to the publications on historical themes discussed or signaled by the
press in the summer of 1792. I intend to show how the history of the ancient
republics served as a laboratory in which model or simulate the effectiveness of
new ideas and concepts, but also as practical guide for those where living
through the shocking reality of the revolution.
Keywords: French revolution, Constitution, National Convention, Uses of the
past, Republicanism
I. INTRODUCTION: BACK TO THE PAST
Until recently, the French Revolution was studied with a gaze to the future2,
toward the new world that it generated and that could only be conceived through
the categories that it had created3. For this reason, the revolution seemed like a
familiar event for those who studied it, one that had little to do with the past or
with events that occurred elsewhere in the late eighteenth century4. This
approach was accompanied by the conviction that the Revolutionaries had
chosen the future as a term of comparison for imagining France's regeneration5,
1
Translated by Zakiya Hanafi
2 See Rebecca L. Spang, “Paradigms and Paranoia: How Modern Is the French Revolution?”,
American Historical Review, n° 108, 2003, pp. 119-147.
3 Keith Michael Baker et al. (eds.), The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political
Culture, 4 vols., Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1987-1989, 1994; François Furet, La Révolution en
débat, Gallimard, Paris, 1999; Michel Biard (ed.), La Révolution française. Une histoire toujours
vivante, Tallandier, Paris, 2010; Sophie Wahnich (ed.), Histoire d'un trésor perdu. Transmettre la
Révolution française, Les Prairies Ordinaires, Paris, 2013.
See Francesco Benigno, Mirrors of Revolution. Conflict and Political Identity in Early Modern
Europe, English trans., Brepols, Turnhout, 2009.
4
François Hartog, “La Révolution française et l’Antiquité. Avenir d’une illusion ou cheminement
d’un quiproquo?”, in Chrissanthy Avlami (ed.), L’Antiquité grecque au XIXème siècle. Un exemplum
contesté?, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2000, pp. 7-46; Avlami, “Le modèle antique à l’épreuve du
XVIII siècle. Réflexions sur l’analogie la différenciation et l’Histoire”, in Avlami, Jaime Alvar, Mirella
Romero Recio (eds.), Historiographie de l’Antiquité et transferts culturels. Les histoires anciennes
dans l’Europe des XVIIe et XIXe siècles, Brill, Amsterdam and New York, 2010, pp. 51-65.
5
Revista de Historia Constitucional
ISSN 1576-4729, n.16, 2015. http://www.historiaconstitucional.com, págs. 1-18
Daniele di Bartolomeo
ignoring current events and definitively emancipating themselves from the past6.
This position, which still garners support in the wake of Reinhart Koselleck7, has
since been strongly questioned8. Historians have realized that the Revolution did
not serve exclusively as a forge for the future: it was also a laboratory where the
new took shape through the reuse of discourses about the past and from the
past, and through comparison with contemporary experiences9.
This radical shift in understanding has opened up new areas for
investigation: the topos of the French exceptionality10 has been fruitfully
challenged11, while the Revolution has been reintroduced into its own spatial and
temporal perspective12. In the last decade especially, many historians have
labored to identify the French republican moment13, with the aim of extending to
revolutionary France the studies on the classical republican tradition begun by
John Pocock14 and developed variously by Quentin Skinner15, Philip Petitt16, and
many others17. However, despite having filled this gap by partially reconstructing
French contributions to classical republican discourse, they have overlooked
6 Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution, University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1984.
7 Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe,
Cambridge, Columbia University Press, Mass., and London, 1985.
François Quastana, Pierre Serna, “Le républicanisme anglais dans la France des Lumières et
de la Révolution: mesure d’une présence”, La Révolution française [En ligne], n° 5, 2013, mis en
ligne le 31 décembre 2013, Consulté le 04 février 2014. URL: http://lrf.revues.org/984.
8
9 See, for example, Francesco Benigno and Nicoletta Bazzano (eds.) Uso e reinvenzione
dell’antico nella politica di età moderna (secoli XVI-XIX), Lacaita Editore, Manduria, Bari, and Roma,
2006 and Manuela Albertone and Antonino De Francesco (eds.), Rethinking Atlantic Word. Europe
and America in the Age of Democratic Revolutions, Palgrave, New York, 2009.
10
Michel Vovelle (ed.), Révolution et République. L’exception française, Kimé, Paris, 1994.
11
Annie Jourdan, La Révolution, une exception française?, Flammarion, Paris, 2004.
12 Pierre Serna, “Le Directoire, miroir de quelle République? ”, in Pierre Serna (ed.), Républiques
sœurs. Le Directoire et la Révolution atlantique, PUR, Rennes, 2009, pp. 7-20.
Raymonde Monnier, Républicanisme, patriotisme et Révolution française, L’Harmattan, Paris,
2005, p. 38. See also: Mona Ozouf, Varennes. La mort de la royauté, Gallimard, Paris, 2005;
Jacques de Saint-Victor, Les racines de la liberté. Le débat français oublié 1689-1789, Perrin,
Paris, 2007; Andrew Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror: the Republican Origins of
French Liberalism, Cornell University Press, Itacha, N.Y., and London, 2008.
13
John G. A. Pocock, “Cittadini, clienti e creditori: la repubblica come critica del mutamento
storico”, in Maurizio Viroli (ed.), Libertà politica e virtù civile. Significati e percorsi del
repubblicanesimo classico, Edizioni della Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, Torino, 2004, p. 133; John
G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican
Tradition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1975.
14
Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998;
Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (eds.), Republicanism: a shared European heritage, 2
vols., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002.
15
16 Philippe Petitt, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1997.
Marco Geuna, “La tradizione repubblicana e i suoi interpreti: famiglie teoriche e discontinuità
concettuali”, Filosofia politica, n° 1, 1998, pp. 102-132.
17
2
Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
many aspects of the Revolutionaries' use of antiquity – precisely because they
have worked in the wave of the Cambridge school's approach18.
The guiding theme of these studies is almost always the republican
discourse: a peculiar, practically invariable set of visions and political solutions
that the French republicans used to imagine their republic, as did Machiavelli
and the Anglo-American revolutionaries before them. Unlike their predecessors,
however, who in one way or another made the most of the principles of the
republican tradition, the case of the revolutionaries is viewed at best as a missed
opportunity19, and at worst as a game of mirrors with tragic consequences. Thus,
while the Year I republicans are portrayed as having failed miserably in the
attempt to establish a democratic republic because they were obsessed by a
certain image of antiquity20, those of Year III were purportedly incapable of
stabilizing the Republic despite the fact (or perhaps precisely because of the fact)
that they drew on a different, more elitist version of classical republicanism21. But
this is not the place to discuss these questionable interpretations, which
reproduce the theme of exceptionality no longer with reference to the French
Revolution (that is, a historical event), but with regard to classical republicanism
(that is, a historical idiom)22.
The aim of this paper is rather to investigate the image of the ancient
republics in the early months of the French Republic23, with particular attention
to the debate that preceded the adoption of the Constitution of the Year I (June
24, 1793) 24, and to publications on historical themes discussed or mentioned by
the press from the summer of 1792.
I intend to show that the history of the ancient republics was a guiding
landmark for many French revolutionaries: it served as a laboratory to model or
simulate the effectiveness of new ideas and concepts; it was a repertoire of events
and actors to be used in the political battle as well as a practical guide for those
who were living through the shocking reality of the revolution.
18 Christophe Hamel, “L’esprit républicain anglais adapté à la France du XVIIIe siècle: un
républicanisme classique?”, in La Révolution française [En ligne], n° 5, 2013, mis en ligne le 31
décembre 2013, Consulté le 04 février 2014. URL: http://lrf.revues.org/997.
19
Jacques de Saint-Victor, Les racines de la liberté, op. cit., pp. 15-16.
20 Keith Michael Baker, “Transformations of Classical Republicanism in Eighteenth-Century
France”, The Journal of Modern History, n° 73, 2001, pp. 32-53.
21
Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror, op. cit.
On the historiography on the use of the past in the French Revolution, see now Daniele Di
Bartolomeo, Nelle vesti di Clio. L’uso politico della storia nella Rivoluzione francese (1787-1799),
Viella, Rome, 2014.
22
23
Michel Biard et al. (eds.), 1792. Entrer en République, Armand Colin, Paris, 2013.
Michel Pertué, “Les projets constitutionnels de 1793”, in Révolution et République, op. cit., pp.
174-195; Giuseppe F. Floridia, “Il governo repubblicano nei progetti dei Convenzionali: tableaux di
ingegneria costituzionale”, Giornale di storia costituzionale, n° 10, 2005, pp. 107-130.
24
3
Daniele di Bartolomeo
II. THE FIRST FRENCH
CLASSICAL REVOLUTIONS
REPUBLICANS
FACE-TO-FACE
WITH
THE
When the French revolutionaries dethroned Louis XVI25, transforming the
monarchy into a republic, most people repudiated the ancient models after a long
period of having praised them. It was one thing to declare oneself an admirer of
the Romans or the Spartans under a king; it was another to do this in a republic.
In the first case, the classical world was distant and irrelevant enough to allow its
admirers to use it as they pleased to criticize the monarchical regime and imagine
a reform26. In the other case, under a republic, it was a matter of actually
constructing this alternative – so that the clearly defined and deliberately
sugarcoated contours of the ancient republics became more blurred and
uncertain. Not that there was any lack of books designed to legitimize the
unprecedented republican adventure through the deeds of its classic namesakes.
The citizen Bulard, for example, published a work in 1793 that employed the
history of ancient and modern republics in order to reassure French republicans
as to the feasibility of this grand undertaking. In this text, the author describes
the historical paths that have led the peoples of all times from conquest to the
loss of liberty. It is a narrative device that Bulard employs not only to explain and
justify the topicality of the Revolution, especially the execution of Louis XVI and
the proclamation of the Republic, but also to warn the French about their future
[FIG. 1].
Bulard's intent, in other words, is to narrate the story and the possible
(undesirable) outcomes of the Revolution through the histories of revolutions. In
listing the insights and mistakes of ancient and modern republicans, his
intention is to advise his fellow citizens on how to build a solid republic and on
what the most appropriate remedies should be adopted to prevent the return of
monarchy or the advent of anarchy. Otherwise, warns Bulard, the French
Republic will struck by the same fate that felled all the republics in the past:
We have just given you a constitution based on the principles of justice. It is
up to you to strengthen it by good ways of living, and to consolidate it by the
empire of virtue. These are the best bases that it can have. How many
republics, failing to be established on these foundations, shone for a few
moments with the brilliance of equality, and were followed by eclipses, similar
to those meteors that astonish the eye by a sudden flash, and dissipate [… ]
May the misfortunes of other Peoples not be lost to us: let us become wise
from their mistakes27.
Marcel Reinhard, La chute de la royauté, Gallimard, Paris, 1969; Michel Vovelle, La chute de
la monarchie: 1787-1792, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1989; Michael Walzer, Régicide et Révolution. Le
procès de Louis XVI, discours et controverses, Payot, Paris, 1989; David P. Jordan, The King’s Trial.
Louis XVI vs. the French Revolution, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004; John Hardman,
Louis XVI. The silent King, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2000.
25
Luciano Guerci, Libertà degli antichi e libertà dei moderni: Sparta, Atene e i ‘philosophes’ nella
Francia del Settecento, Guida, Napoli, 1979; Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution.
Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1990.
26
27 “Nous venons de vous donner une constitution assise sur les principles de la justice. C’est à
vous à l’affermir par de bonnes moeurs, et à la consolider par l’empire de la vertu. Ce sont-là les
4
Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
Fig. 1 Brutus condemns his two sons to death, and they were beheaded [Brutus condamne luimême ses deux fils à la mort, et ils eurent la tête tranchée]. Frontispiece of Bulard, Brutus, ou
Tableau historique des républiques tant anciennes que modernes, où l'on voit leur origine et leur
établissement, ainsi que les causes de leur décadence et de leur ruine; précédé d'Observations sur la
réforme de l'ère vulgaire, et du nouveau calendrier: ouvrage propre aux écoles nationales, Paris,
1793.
The imitation of the ancients, therefore, was no longer only a rhetorical
opportunity: it was also a concrete problem, which required a new focus. The
classical world had to be adapted to the new scenario28. Otherwise, unless some
proper precautions were taken, they ran the risk of imitating it in every detail,
dragging France into the “vicious circle” of state revolutions:
meilleurs bases qu’elle puisse avoir. Que de républiques, faute d’être établies sur ces fondemens,
ont brillé quelques momens de l’éclat de l’égalité, et se sont ensuire eclipses, semblables à ces
meteors qui étonnent les regards par une clarté subite, et se dissipent […] Que les malheurs des
autres Peuples ne soient pas perdus pour nous: tirons notre sagesse de leurs fautes”: Brutus, ou
Tableau historique des républiques tant anciennes que modernes, où l'on voit leur origine et leur
établissement, ainsi que les causes de leur décadence et de leur ruine, Paris, 1793, pp. 142-143.
Luca Scuccimarra, “Sorvegliare e punire. Rivoluzione francese e istituzioni di controllo”, Il
Pensiero Politico, n° 2, 2007, pp. 434-462.
28
5
Daniele di Bartolomeo
An observation that we should make good use of is that the Athenians, the
Spartans, and the Romans all began with a monarchy, which only too quickly,
as was to be expected, degenerated into despotism – this is the natural course
of things – they went on to the aristocratic regime, then they came to
democracy, where they remained too short a time, and through anarchy they
returned too quickly to the point where they had begun; that is, to tyrants
decorated with the titles of kings or emperors29.
In September 1792, the author of Les Révolutions de Paris, the famous
French revolutionary newspaper, talking about Athens, Sparta and Rome,
confidently opined: “They are not a reference model for us”. He also added: “We
are imitating nobody. Our republic will only have the name of ‘republic’ in
common with the others, both the ancient and the modern ones”30. And yet, the
term ‘republic’ was not the only residue of the ancient world to be transferred into
the new institutional framework. In the months following the founding of the
French Republic, reviews and recommendations of books on the history and the
constitutions of the ancient (and modern) republics proliferated in the press31.
This is because, despite fears about the possibility that France was badly
replicating the experiences of the past, or perhaps precisely for this very reason,
there were many who thought that history had something to teach. This is what
we read in the introduction to a history of the ancient Republics translated from
English in 1793:
I sketched the sad picture of the causes that directly or indirectly contributed
to the downfall of the ancient republics, to serve us as beacons and to allow us
to steer clear, if possible, of the reefs upon which these ancient nations
watched their excellent constitutions run aground and perish32.
It has been rightly pointed out that the republican discourse revolved around
the contingency of political regimes and the means devised and deployed in the
29 “Une observation dont il nous faut profiter, c’est que les Athèniens, les Spartiates et les
Romains, tous trois commencèrent par la monarchie, qui ne tarda pas, comme on devoit s’y
attendre, par dégénérer en despotisme; c’est le cours naturel des choses; ils passèrent au régime
aristocratique, puis ils en vinrent à la démocratie; ils y restèrent trop peu de temps, et
retournèrent trop vite, par l’anarchie, au point d’où ils étoient partis, c’est-à-dire, aux tyrans
décorés de titres de rois ou d’empereurs”: Les Révolutions de Paris, n° 168, du 22 au 29 septembre
1792, p. 6.
30 “N’ont rien à nous offrir capable de nous servir de règle ou de préservatif […] à coup sûr
nous n’avons point de modèle, nous n’imitons personne […] cette république dont nous jetons les
fondemens […] n’aura que le nom de commun avec toutes celles qui ont passé et qui existent
encore sur la terre”: Ibidem.
31
Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Fragment de politique et d’histoire, Paris, 1792.
“J’ai crayonné le triste tableau des causes qui ont directement ou indirectement contribué à
la chute des anciennes républiques, pour nous servir comme autant de fanaux, et nous faire
éviter, s’il est possible, les écueils contre lesquels ces nations antique ont vu échouer et périr leurs
excellentes constitutions”: De la naissance et de la chute des anciennes Républiques. Traduit de
l’anglais (d’Edward-Wortley Montagu) par le citoyen André-Samuel-Michel Cantwell, Paris, 1793, p.
17.
32
6
Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
past for founding them and preventing their decline33. This is a homeopathic
theory of sorts that viewed the purposive use of the past as the only antidote
capable of interrupting the cyclical rhythm of history, perhaps inspired by the
famous classical model of the mixed constitution:
At the time of founding a republic that is too big perhaps, in giving it laws, it is
only by studying the different constitutions of all the republics of antiquity,
and by reviewing the cycle that they went through from their birth until their
fall, that our legislators will receive solid instructions. They will see that the
most celebrated legislators of antiquity all brought forth mixed governments,
or combinations of different powers that balance one another and maintain
each other within the limits set by the constitution. They will see that freedom
never existed in states where there was only one power, because a single
power is always absolute: they will be forced to agree that strictly popular
governments have always been the least sustainable, the most prone to
factions, and the closest to anarchy34.
As this passage makes clear, ancient history was a highly topical genre at
the time, a print product whose success was guaranteed. This is something the
publishers of the Cercle Social were well aware of: they were a group of activists
who (guided by the experience of their ancient predecessors) had long promoted
the possibility of establishing a democratic republic in France35. It was their idea
to print the posthumous works of the well-known classicist Athanase Auger (who
had died at the beginning of the 1792) at the end of the year. In introducing the
first volume dedicated to The Constitution of the Romans, the Cercle Social
described the work as “very important at the moment, when all the nations are
reforming their Governments”36. This was a discreet, elegant way of reminding the
Andrew Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror, op. cit., p. 6. Speaking about the
Constitution of the Year III, taking his cue from Baker's thought, Jainchill has rightly stated that:
“They understood the problems facing the French Revolution in classical-republican terms and
articulated solutions drawn from the classical-republican repertoire”: “The Constitution of the Year
III and the Persistence of Classical Republicanism”, French Historical Studies, n° 26, 2003, p. 399.
33
“Au moment de fonder, en lui donnant des loix, une république trop vaste peut-être, ce n’est
que dans l’étude des différentes constitutions de toutes les républiques de l’antiquité, et dans
l’examen suivi du cercle qu’elles ont parcouru depuis leur naissance jusqu’à leur chute, que nos
législateurs pourront puiser de solides instructions. Ils verront que les plus célèbres législateurs
de l’antiquité ont tous donné la présence aux gouvernemens mixtes, ou composés de différens
pouvoirs qui se balancent et se maintiennent réciproquement dans les limites fixées par la
constitution. Ils verront que la liberté n’exista jamais dans les états où il n’y avoit qu’un seul
pouvoir, parce qu’un pouvoir unique est toujours absolu: ils seront forcés de convenir que les
gouvenemens strictement populaires ont toujours été les moins durables, les plus sujets aux
factions, les plus voisins de l’anarchie”: “Réflexions et conclusion du Traducteur sur la présente
situation de la France, et sur les mesures propres à assurer la durée, la tranquillité et la prospérité
de la nouvelle République”, in De la naissance et de la chute des anciennes Républiques, op. cit., pp.
373-374.
34
35 Gary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins, and the French Revolution, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, 1985; Marcel Dorigny, Aux origines de la Républiques, 1789-1792, 5 vols.,
EDHIS, Paris, 1991.
“Très-important dans un moment où tous les peuples s’occupent de la réforme des
Gouvernemens”: Oeuvres postumes d’Athanase Auger, 10 vols., De la Constitution des Romains
sous les rois et aux tems de la République, Paris, 1792, 1, p. 5.
36
7
Daniele di Bartolomeo
French that, in spite of the enormous distance that separated them from the
republics of antiquity – which were unanimously viewed as incompatible with the
France of the late eighteenth century in terms of their territorial extension and
social and moral characteristics – the most recent turns taken by the Revolution
suggested that they keep the turbulent epic of the ancients, which had never
been closer to home than now, uppermost in their minds. The history of Rome
and the Greek cities, only recently repeated in the England of Cromwell and the
Stuarts,37 was both a warning to not repeat the past and a challenge to equal it.
Let us take, for example, the play entitled The Day of Marathon [La Journée
de Marathon]. Coming off the presses of the Cercle Social in the summer of 1792,
it dramatizes the Athens of Miltiades in its struggle against the Persians under
King Darius I. When the theatrical work was reviewed in the Parisian newspapers
in July and August of 179238, revolutionary France had been at war for some
months and the Legislative Assembly had just declared the “fatherland in danger”
[la patrie en danger] (July 11). During the same period, the French looked on
appalled at the “betrayal” of general La Fayette, who was attempting an
unsuccessful military coup to restore Paris to monarchical order. Clearly, then,
the story of the Athenians' memorable victory at Marathon (490 A.D.) was no
simple literary pastime. Moreover, the author of the play immediately admitted
that his intention was not simply to tell the marvelous tale of something that had
happened centuries before in ancient Greece:
Remaining as faithful to history as possible, I wanted to provide a model to my
fellow citizens by showing them a people in the most desperate of situations,
who, while seeing dangers mounting and resources dwindling at every
moment, made great, just, and dignified resolutions with all the composure of
the courage possessed by those extraordinary men who lived in that age. I
believed that there ought to be only one interest in a play of this sort, that of
saving the homeland and preserving freedom. I believed that the plot should
be very simple and, although the events are pressing, that the action ought to
develop slowly and with the dignity of a truly free people who only fear traitors
and who are resolved to sacrifice everything rather than fall back into
bondage39.
37 Laurence L. Bongie, David Hume: prophet of the counter revolution (1965), Libery Found,
Oxford, 2000; Oliver Lutaud, Des Révolutions d’Angleterre à la Révolution Française. Le tyrannicide
et Killing no murder, Martinus Nijoff, La Haye, 1973; Rachel Hammersley, “The Commonwealth of
Oceana de James Harrington: un modèle pour la France révolutionnaire?”, Annales historiques de la
Révolution française, n° 342, 2005, pp. 3-20; Ead., French Revolutionaries and English
Republicans. The Cordeliers Club, 1790-1794, The Boydell and Brewer, New York, 2005.
38 Gazette nationale, ou Le Moniteur universel, 21 vols. (Paris, 1789-1799), 7, n° 197
(15/07/1792), p. 824 (hereafter Moniteur); La Chronique du Mois, III, Août 1793, p. 77.
“J’ai voulu, en conservant, autant qu’il m’a été possible, la fidélité de l’histoire, offrir un
modèle à mes concitoyens en leur montrant un people qui, dans la situation la plus désespérante,
voyant à chaque moment ses dangers augmenter et ses resources disparoître, prend avec tout le
sang froid du courage des resolutions justes, grandes et dignes des homes extraordinaires qui
parurent à cette époque. J’ai cru que, dans une pièce de ce genre, il ne devoit y avoir qu’un seul
intérêt, celui de sauver la patrie et de conserver la liberté. J’ai cru que l’intrigue devoit être trèssimple et que, bien que les événemens se pressassent, l’action devoit se developer lentement et
avec la dignité d’un people vraiment libre qui ne craint que les traîtres et qui est résolu à tout
sacrifier plutôt que de retomber dans la servitude”: Jean François Guéroult, La Journée de
39
8
Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
What we have here, then, is a historical comparison set up specifically to
interpret current events and depict their most likely developments. First and
foremost, it is the events that precede the defeat of Darius's army on the famous
plain of Attica that have something in common with what was happening in
France: the tyrannicide of Hipparchus (son and heir of Peisistratos), by the hand
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and the “hunt” of his brother and successor,
Hippias40. The author's intention for this episode was to offer his audience a
radical reading of the present, which was ultimately also an anticipation of what
would happen in the ensuing months. The verses contained in the Day of
Marathon represent an indictment against the resolutions put into effect by the
court with the complicity of the émigrés-aristocrats and foreign powers who
sought to restore monarchical power. The character of Hippias, for example, who
tried unsuccessfully to re-enter Athens following Darius's troops, brings to mind
both the heads of the counter-revolution – the new "Peisistratids" who wandered
Europe in search of allies willing and ready to put an end to the Revolution41 – as
well as General La Fayette who, having failed in his attempt, on August 19
sensationally surrendered himself to the Austrians.
Nevertheless, the fate of the Athenian tyrant also resonates strongly with the
history of Louis XVI: shortly afterwards, the French king was also ousted (August
10, 1792). Likewise, the triumph of the Athenian people resembles that of the
revolutionaries, who, a few weeks later, were to beat the Prussians in the
unexpected victory of Valmy (September 20): a military success that the press
would compare to the greatest victories of the ancients, including that of
Marathon. When the play finally debuted at the National Theater in Paris in the
summer of 1793, it was clear to everyone that the day of Marathon was a
revolutionary day42.
There are many other examples that can be shown to be comparing the
events taking place in France with those that occurred in the ancient world,
juxtaposing the events of the present with the revolutions of the distant past.
However, the classicism of the French revolutionaries did not consist solely in a
sampling of state revolutions. It was also a history of great constitutions and
legendary lawmakers, whose portraits were accordingly reproduced in the Salle
Marathon, ou le Triomphe de la liberté, pièce historique en 4 actes, en prose, avec des intermèdes et
des chœurs, Paris, 1792, p. 5.
40 “The scene is in Athens. In the background, the Theater represents a public place. At the
sides, on the right, the facade of a temple where there stand statues of Harmodius and
Aristogiton. On the left, the portico of a building that we imagine to be the Council Hall [La scène
est à Athènes. Le Théâtre représente dans le fond une place publique. Sur les côtés, à droite, la
façade d’un temple où sont les statues d’Harmodius et d’Aristogiton. A gauche le portique d’une
edifice qu’on suppose être la salle du conseil]”: Ivi, p. 6.
41 "The Peisistratids finally came to arm the Persians against the liberty of Athens. For a long
time Hippias and his friends traveled around the cities of Greece seeking in vain to drum up hate
against us [Les Pisistratides sont enfin pervenus à armer les Perses contre la liberté d’Athènes.
Long-tems Hippias et ses amis ont en vain parcouru les villes de la Grèce, cherchant à exciter
contre nous la haine]”: Ivi, p. 7.
42
See also François-Nicolas Guillard, Miltiade à Marathon: opéra en deux actes, Paris, 1793.
9
Daniele di Bartolomeo
du Manège (Riding Hall) of the Tuileries Palace43, the last seat of the National
Convention, which was inaugurated in the spring of 1793.
III. THE ANCIENTS IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE OF YEAR I
The image of the classical world that emerges from the discourses of Year I is
highly stylized and ambivalent: if on the one hand it allows the revolutionaries to
imagine a free, democratic republic immune from the risk of moral decay and
conspiracies, on the other hand, it confronts them with the possibility that an
undertaking of this sort may end, as it did then, in failure.
In the minds of the deputies of the National Convention, constructing and
maintaining a democratic republic was a difficult, risky affair. The ambiguous
memory of the ancients' experience – which seemed both unattainable and
unfinished, attractive and repulsive, exemplary and disastrous – was barely
attenuated by the recent but still unresolved constitutional experiment of the
Americans44. To avoid a similar ending, it did not suffice to infuse classical ideas
into society and transplant republican institutions into the constitution: the
republican legacy also had to be adapted to France. For these reasons, the
revolutionaries imagined a republic that should be democratic but not overly so,
founded on the principle of representation, but not exclusively. To be both
democratic and representative, the French Republic had to depart from the
ancients but at the same time keep their mistakes and insights in mind. The
words of Durand de Mallaine are emblematic in this regard:
In a free state as large as France, can it occur to anyone to give it the laws of
Lycurgus, when in Sparta they lived for nothing but war? Would it be better to
give it the laws of Solon, since trade was despised in Athens? Finally, we
cannot give it the laws of Rome, where, with the spirit of conquest, they always
had patricians. So what course should we take? For many despair of our
republic, by its very principles, because of the excessive corruption of
manners, and the excessive extent or population of the empire45.
43 François Boyer, “Les Tuileries sous la Convention”, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art
Française, n° 1, 1934, pp. 213-218.
Henry E. Bourne, “American Constitutional Precedents in the French National Assembly”, The
American Historical Review, n° 7, 1903, pp. 466-486; Joyce Appleby, “America as a Model for the
Radical French Reformers of 1789”, William & Mary Quarterly, n° XXVIII, 1971, pp. 267-286;
Denis Lacorne, L’invention de la république: le modèle americain, Hachette, Paris, 1991; Michele R.
Morris (ed.), Images of America in Revolutionary France, Georgetown University Press, Washington,
1990; Roberto Martucci (ed.), Constitution & Révolution aux États-Unis d’Amérique et en Europe,
1766-1815, Laboratorio di storia costituzionale, Macerata, 1995. On the use of ancient history
during the American Revolution, see especially the works by Eran Shalev: “Ancient Masks,
American Fathers: Classical Pseudonyms during the American Revolution and Early Republic”,
Journal of the Early Republic, n° 23, 2003, pp. 151-172; Rome Reborn on Western shores.
Historical Imagination and the Creation of American Republic, University of Virginia Press,
Charlotesville, 2009.
44
45 “Dans un état libre et aussi vaste que la France, peut-il venir à l’idée de personne de lui
donner les lois de Lycurgue, lorsqu’à Lacédémone on ne vivoit que pour la guerre? Peut-on mieux
lui donner les lois de Solon, lorsqu’à Athènes on méprisoit le commerce? Enfin, l’on ne peut pas
plus lui donner les lois de Rome, où, avec l’esprit de conquete, il y a toujours eu des patriciens.
Quel parti donc prendre? Car plusieurs désespèrent de notre république, par ses principes
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Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
The modern idea of republic, therefore, had to be refounded on the ruins of
the ancient one. How was this to be done? By confronting new problems with
ostensibly ancient methods, and by readdressing often only apparently ancient
questions with new solutions (possibly dressed up in ancient garb). As the
historian Chrissanthy Avlami rightly observed:
Greek history is interpreted in light of a discourse fundamental to the
Revolution and fundamentally alien to the Greek polis: the discourse of laws,
the discourse on rights, and the debates concerning the mechanisms by which
they are to be safeguarded46
The revolutionaries reinvented Antiquity as an imaginary place that, in the
face of the present, made the latter appear either conspicuously superior or
deficient.47 It was an adaptable enough way to test out the effectiveness and
durability of the political solutions of modernity. And more. There were some who
even believed that the only way the French could avoid succumbing to the same
fate as the Greeks and Romans was to resurrect some of the political and moral
institutions from the classical world48. What this involved were ancient
suggestions, remedies conceived or already tried out in the classical world,
opportunely reworked and adapted, that were expected to prevent the new
political regime from falling into the most likely forms of degeneration: these, too,
were deduced by analogy and by contrast, through a comparison between the
ancient republics and the French Republic.
The deputies of the National Convention found themselves faced with a
twofold, contradictory imperative that required them to prevent the excesses of
democracy and to ensure the surveillance of the people's representatives as well
as the involvement of citizens in legislative activity. Emblematic in this regard is
the title of a speech made by the deputy Charles Lambert dated June 10, 1793:
On the revocability of the people’s representatives, and more in general, of all the
public officers, the only way to obtain a reliable democracy with a representative
government, and to prevent the people’s revolts [De la révocabilité des représentans
du peuple, et en général, de tous les fonctionnaires publics, seul moyen d’avoir une
véritable démocratie, avec un gouvernement représentatif, et de prévenir les
insurrections populaires]. The theme of popular participation thus underwent a
mêmes, à cause de la trop grande corruption des mœurs, et de la trop grande étendue ou
population de l’empire”: Pierre Toussaint Durand de Maillane, Examen critique du projet de
constitution, présenté à la Convention nationale, par son comité, avec un ordre nouveau dans le plan,
le 16 mars 1793, p. 7.
46 Chrissanthy Avlami, “From historia magistra vitae to History as Empirical Experimentation of
Progress”, in Gabor Klaniczay, Michael Werner and Eight Gecser (eds.), Multiple Antiquities Multiple Modernities. Ancient History in Nineteenth Century European Culture, Campus Verlag,
Frankfurt am Main, 2011, p. 146.
47 “Greek democracy serves both as exemplum and, conversely, as proof of the radical novelty
introduced by the Revolution: the limited citizenry and pro-slave democracy on the one hand, the
‘plenitude of citizens’ rights’ and thus ‘real democracy’ on the other”: Ivi, p. 151.
Luca Scuccimarra, “Rivoluzione francese e istituzioni di controllo”, op. cit.; Marcel Gauchet,
La Révolution des pouvoirs. La souveraineté, le peuple et la représentation, 1789-1799, Gallimard,
Paris, 1995, pp. 80-121.
48
11
Daniele di Bartolomeo
transformation from a controversial symbol of democracy for the ancients to a
corrective one for the moderns49.
This debate on how to modulate the concept of democracy led many of the
members of the National Convention into an impasse from which no exit was ever
discovered. Their convoluted exercises in constitutional engineering only
produced prototypes that were impossible to achieve50, crammed with ancient
institutions51 and designed for radical regeneration of society through the
reintroduction of classical educational and military models.52 Consider, for
example, the institution of censure, which was even envisaged in the draft
constitution presented by Condorcet, where it speaks of a “people's censure on
acts of national representation”.53 There were many who reflected on the
possibility of introducing an intermediate power into the constitutional framework
that would allow the mutual surveillance of society and political power. Still
referring to the institution of the censors, for example, the member of the
National Convention Jean-François Barailon envisaged that: “They will watch
over the intriguers, the conspirators and the agitators and they will bring them to
court without any remission”54. His colleague Jean Pierre Picqué, on the other
hand, drew attention to the ancient laws that obligated “all the citizens to appear
in front of the magistrates in charge of surveillance”55. Nonetheless, he then
cautions that the same institution could turn into a shortcut for usurping power:
49 Daniele Di Bartolomeo, “Abuso delle parole (e della storia) nella Rivoluzione francese: il popolo
dell’anno III”, in Luca Scuccimarra and Giovanni Ruocco (eds.), Il governo del popolo. Dall’antico
regime alla Rivoluzione, Viella, Roma, 2011, pp. 331-355. On the leading role of the people and the
use of the concept of the people during the Revolution, see: Gérard Fritz, L’idée de peuple en
France du XVIIIe au XIXe siècle, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1988; Christian
A. Muller, “Du ‘peuple égaré’ au ‘peuple enfant’. Le discours politique révolutionnaire à l’épreuve de
la révolte populaire en 1793”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, n° 47, 2000, pp. 93112; David Andress, Massacre at the Champ de Mars: popular dissent and political culture in the
French Revolution. The Boydell Press, New York, 2000; Jon Cowans, To Speak for the People: Public
Opinion and the Problem of Legitimacy in the French Revolution, Routledge, London and New York,
2001; Déborah Cohen, La nature du peuple. Les formes de l’imaginaire social, XVIIIe-XXIe siècle,
Champ Vallon, Seyssel, 2010.
Antoine-Innocent Blaviel, Réflexions préliminaires sur la constitution française et sur
l’organisation d’un gouvernement populaire; présentées à la Convention nationale, Paris, le 13 mai
1793.
50
51
Jacques-Marie Rouzet, Projet de constitution française, Paris, le 18 Avril 1793.
Claude-Louis-Michel Desacy, Nouvelles observations sur le plan de Constitution, Paris, 1793,
pp. 2-4.
52
53 Plan de Constitution présenté à la Convention Nationale, les 15 et 16 Février 1793, p. 31. On
Condorcet, see: Keith M. Baker, Condorcet: from Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975.
54 “Surveilleront […] les intrigans, les cabaleurs, les pertubateurs, les séditieux et les
dénonceront irrémissiblement au tribunal”: Jean-François Barailon, Projet de constitution, présenté
à la Convention nationale, Le premier juin 1793, p. 41.
“Tous les citoyens de se présenter devant les magistrats chargés d’une surveillance sévère, et
de punir les oisifs, les intrigans et les calomniateurs,”: Nécessité d’établir une censure publique,
Paris, june 1793, p. 10.
55
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Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
It has not been forgotten that the Ephori, responsible for maintaining the
freedom of the people, appointed annually by the people, soon usurped the
executive power for which they should have only acted as moderators.
Everybody trembled before this new power; and the senate of Sparta, with no
influence, was no longer anything more than a court of law. The history of
censure in Rome is no less well-known; in the end it was associated with
imperial dignity56.
The history books and the broader public debate that took place on the
events, institutions, and main characters of the past from the fall of the
monarchy to the approval of the Constitution of the Year I refute the widely held
belief that the revolutionaries had only a vague knowledge of the classical world57.
What we find in these texts, in fact, is an image of Sparta, Athens, and Rome that
is not unlike – or at least is no less exact than – the ones provided by
Chassebœuf de Volney, Chateaubriand, Constant, and Fustel de Coulanges (to
cite the most famous critics of Jacobin classicism)58. On these lines, A Glance at
Republics by the Parisian deputy Desrues is significant. It clearly depicts a
historical representation of the ancient republics, the experience of which is
judged to be incompatible, unfinished and, ultimately, disastrous:
Citizens, it is antiquity that must teach us; let us tear away the veil that hides
it from us; may great names, may fame, may fickle reputation not beguile us;
let us open history up, seek, discover, and grasp the truth [...] It is because
peoples were ignorant of Equality that they ended up losing Liberty59.
To take another example, consider the opening pages of Constitutions of the
Spartans, the Athenians, and the Romans published by Pierre-Claude-Bernard
Guéroult in 1792. They are dedicated to the Helots – the famous slaves whom the
revolutionaries would later be accused of having (inexplicably or cunningly)
forgotten. The same argument holds for the agrarian law60. In this case, too, the
56 “On n’a pas oublié que les Ephores, chargés de maintenir la liberté du peuple, nommés
annuellement par lui, usurpèrent bientôt la puissance exécutrice dont ils n’auroient dû être que
les modérateurs. Tout trembla devant ce nouveau pouvoir ; et le sénat de Sparte, sans influence,
ne fut plus en effet qu’une cour de justice. L’histoire de la censure à Rome n’est pas moins
connue; elle finit par être associée à la dignité impériale”: Ivi, p. 18.
57 Luciano Canfora, “Immagini moderne della schiavitù di età classica”, Index, n° 8, 1977-78, pp.
104-120; Jacques Godechot, “L’influence de l’antiquité à l’époque de la Révolution”, Index, n° 7,
1977, pp. 45-55; Michel Dubuisson, “La Révolution française et l’Antiquité”, Cahiers de Clio, n°
100, 1989, pp. 29-42.
Giovanni Paoletti, Illusione e libertà. Benjamin Constant e gli antichi, Carocci, Roma, 2001;
François Hartog, Anciens, modernes, sauvages, Seuil, Paris, 2005.
58
“Citoyens, c’est à l’antiquité à nous instruire ; déchirons le voile qui nous la dérobe; que les
grands noms, que la célébrité, que la renommée trompeuse ne nous séduisent pas: ouvrons
l’histoire, cherchons, découvrons, saissons la vérité […] C’est parce que les peuples ont méconnu
l’Égalité, qu’ils ont fini par perdre la Liberté”: Philippe-François Desrues, Coup d’œil sur les
républiques anciennes, Paris, 1794, p. 4.
59
60 See Reginald B. Rose, “The ‘red scare’ of the 1790s: the French Revolution and the ‘agrarian
law”, Past and Present, n° 103 1984, pp. 113-130; Peter M. Jones, “The ‘Agrarian Law’: schemes
for land redistribution during the French Revolution”, Past and Present, n° 133, 1991, pp. 96-133;
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Daniele di Bartolomeo
revolutionaries' thinking about redistribution of the land almost always
concluded with an unequivocal rejection of this normative hypothesis – as if to
emphasize that what they had in common with the ancients was not so much the
political solutions that they adopted as the sharing of their status as
Constituents, as regenerators of society:
Lycurgus, this bold legislator, did he not put forward the fatal agrarian law
only when fleeing his country, and lulling the Spartans with the false
revelations of the oracle of Delphi [...] This system, the true tombstone of
emulation, was not feasible in Sparta, only because all its forces were confined
within its walls; and when not warring, its inhabitants lived in idleness; the
Helots, their slaves, were the only ones who labored [...] But would this system
not outrage our equality in law, and necessity, where 25 million men must live
in different places, and work because of the soil and farm products?61.
In short, the deputies of the National Convention seemed compelled to
compare themselves to the ancients and to use their nomenclature to provide
legitimacy for the new institutional proposals, even at the risk of exposing
themselves to criticism from those who might have seen the same historical
parallels as proof of certain failure62.
To take another example, consider the case of dictatorship63. Although it was
a well-known fact that the freedom of Rome had ended under the thumb of a
dictator, on several occasions Marat invoked the institution of a dictatorship64.
And even Robespierre succumbed to the temptation of justifying the emergency
measures needed to preserve the republic by invoking the classic law that was a
not-so-distant alternative to dictatorship, the notorious Senatus consultum
Florence Gauthier, “Loi Agraire”, Dictionnaires des Usages Socio-Politiques (1770-1815), n° 2,
1987, pp. 65-98.
61 “Licurgue, ce hardi législateur, n’a-t-il propose la fatale loi agraire qu’en fuyant son pays, et
qu’en endormant les Spartiates des révélations mensongères de l’oracle de Delphes […] Ce
systême, tombeau véritable de l’émulation, n’a été practicable à Lacédémone, que parce que
toutes ses forces étoient renfermées dans ses murs; qu’hors la guerre, ses habitans vivoient dans
la fénéantise; que les Ilotes, leurs esclaves, étoient les seuls qui travailloient [… Mais ce systême
ne révolteroit-il pas notre égalité en droit, et la nécessité où sont 25 millions d’hommes d’habiter
des lieux différens, et de travailler en raison du sol et des productions?”: Antoine-Joseph
Thorillon, Idées, ou Bases d'une nouvelle déclaration des droits de l'homme, de celle de ses devoirs
et d'une nouvelle constitution pour la République française, Paris, 1793, p. 9.
62 See, for example, the ingenious use of historical comparison practiced by Desmoulins in the
pages of his newspaper (Le Vieux Cordelier) during the clash with Robespierre between the end of
1793 and the beginning of 1794: Pierre Vidal-Naquet, La democratie grecque vue d'ailleurs: essais
d'historiographie ancienne et moderne, Flammarion, Paris, 1990; Rachel Hammersley, French
Revolutionaries and English Republicans, op. cit., pp. 146-158.
Luca Scuccimarra and Daniele Di Bartolomeo, “I dilemmi della dittatura. Governo
dell’emergenza e patologie del potere nel dibattito rivoluzionario in Francia (1789-1793)”, Storia del
Pensiero Politico, n° 1, 2012, pp. 11-42.
63
Cesare Vetter, Il dispotismo della libertà. Dittatura e rivoluzione dall’Illuminismo al 1848,
Franco Angeli, Milano, 1993; Christian Bruschi, “La dictature romaine dans l’histoire des idées
politiques de Machiavel à la Révolution française”, in Michel Gazin (ed.), L’influence de l’Antiquité
sur la pensée politique européenne, XVIe-XXe, Presses Universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, Aix-enProvence, 1996, pp. 195-218.
64
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Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
ultimum prepared by the Roman senate in the event of an emergency65. This was
until April 6, 1793, when the National Convention created the infamous
Committee of Public Safety66 between the indignant protests of the Girondins67
who were crying out at the advent of dictatorship68.
Thus, the exhausting race to rethink the foundations of democracy, intended
to finally make democracy possible and stable, concluded (as expected) in the
worst way: with the confiscation of sovereignty by a faction who ended up
approving a democratic and egalitarian constitution that was impossible to apply.
For this reason, the constitution of the Year I may be regarded as a monument
that the Jacobins unwittingly erected to their own failure, to their inability to
resolve the paradox of democracy [FIG. 2].
Fig. 2 Jacques Le Roy, Human Rights [Droits de l'homme] (detail) (Paris, [1793]).
65
Moniteur, 7, n° 311, Convention Nationale, séance du lundi 5 novembre 1792, p. 1318.
Robert R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled. The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution,
Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2005; Bernard Gainot, Dictionnaire des
membres du Comité de Salut Public: dictionnaire analytique, biographique et comparé des 62
membres du Comité de Salut Public, Tallandier, Paris, 1990.
66
Michael J. Sydenham, The Girondins, Athlone Press, London, 1961; Alison Patrick, The men
of the first French Republic. Political alignments in the National Convention of 1792, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1972; Theodore A. DiPadova, “The Girondins
and the Question of Revolutionary Government”, French Historical Studies, n° 3, 1976, pp. 432450; Albert Soboul (ed.), Actes du colloque Girondins et Montagnards, Société des Études
robespierristes, Paris, 1980; Patrice Higonnet, “The Social and Cultural Antecedents of
Revolutionary Discontinuity: Montagnards and Girondins”, The English Historical Review, n° 396,
1985, pp. 513-544; Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Anne Hildreth, Alan B. Spitzer, “Was There a Girondist
Faction in the National Convention, 1792-1793?”, French Historical Studies, n° 3, 1988, pp. 519536; Frederick A. de Luna, “The ‘Girondins’ Were Girondins, after All”, French Historical Studies,
n° 3, 1988, pp. 506-518; François Furet and Mona Ozouf (eds.), La Gironde et les Girondins, Payot,
Paris, 1991.
67
Jerôme Mavidal, et al. (eds.), Archives parlementaires de 1787 a 1860, recueil complet des
débats législatifs et politiques des chambres françaises: Première série (1787-1799), 99 vols., Paris,
1867-1995, 61, Convention nationale, séance permanente du samedi 6 avril 1793, p. 374.
68
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Daniele di Bartolomeo
It would fall to the deputies of the Constituent Assembly of Year III69 to take
up this challenge once again: a challenge that, contrary to common knowledge,
was held once again under the banner of creative imitation of the past70. But this
is another story.
IV. CONCLUSION: A TRICK OF FATE
Before concluding our discussion on the role of classicism at the beginning
of the French Revolutionary Republic, it should be pointed out that this was not
the only historical precedent used by republicans and, more generally, by the
leaders of the Revolution in order to think about this extraordinary event. Ancient
history was certainly not the only touchstone at the disposal of the French
revolutionaries. As regards the birth of the Republic, for example, a decisive role
was also played by the English revolutions of the seventeenth century and the
American Revolution71. Similarly, the importance assumed by debates on natural
rights and naturalistic metaphors must also be kept in mind72. In future studies,
other rhetorical spaces that the revolutionaries used to imagine their reality must
also be examined. Otherwise, one runs the risk of granting a disproportionate role
to a specific political discourse or to a particular historical precedent.
For now, I would like to conclude by recalling that the attempt to draw
inspiration from the ancient world that was embarked on by the first French
Republicans – which we now understand as reasonable and prudent73, but for all
that not effective – was interpreted at the time, and especially after Thermidor, as
a disastrous attempt at imitation at whose feet the evils of the Revolution could
be partly laid74. Consider, for example, the debate on republican upbringing and
education. In this case, too, despite the bombastic declarations and the approval
of the famous, fancifully Spartan education project drafted by the martyr of the
Revolution, Le Peletier de Saint-Fargueau75, the National Convention never
69
Michel Troper, Terminer la Révolution. La constitution de 1795, Fayard, Paris, 2006.
70 Andrew Jainchill, “Persistence of Classical Republicanism”, op. cit., pp. 399-435; Rachel
Hammersley, “La France contre l’Angleterre, tout contre, ou lire les texts des républicains anglais au
temps du Directoire”, in Républiques sœurs, op. cit., pp. 205-218.
Antonino De Francesco, “Federalist Obsession and Jacobin Conspiracy: France and the United
States in a Time of Revolution, 1789-1794”, in Rethinking Atlantic Word, op. cit., pp. 239-253;
Antonino De Francesco, “Traduzioni e Rivoluzione. La storia meravigliosa della prima versione in
francese del Federalist (Paris, Buisson 1792)”, Rivista storica italiana, n° 1, 2011, pp. 61-110.
71
Marc Belissa et al. (eds.), Républicanisme et droit naturel. Des humanistes aux révolutions des
droits de l’homme et du citoyen, Kimé, Paris, 2009; Mary A. Miller, A Natural History of Revolution.
Violence, Nature in the French Revolutionary Imagination, 1789-1794, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, N. Y., and London, 2011.
72
73
Monique Ipotési, Jacobinisme et classicisme, Adriatica Editrice, Bari, 1984.
Chrissanthy Avlami, “La Grèce dans l’imaginaire libéral ou, comment se débarrasser de la
Terreur”, in L’Antiquité grecque au XIXème siècle, op. cit., p. 75.
74
Joseph Giordani, “L’Antiquité imaginée à travers certains projets d’éducation”, in L’espace et le
temps reconstruits. La Révolution française, une Révolution des mentalités et des cultures? Actes du
colloque organisé à Marseille le 22, 23 et 24 février 1989, Publication de l’Université de Provence,
Aix-en-Provence, 1990, pp. 131-132; Maxime Rosso, “Les réminiscences spartiates dans les
discours et la politique de Robespierre de 1789 à Thermidor”, Annales historiques de la Révolution
française, n° 349, 2007, pp. 51-77.
75
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Fatal Attraction. The classical past at the beginning of the French Revolutionary...
implemented this normative text that Robespierre himself had championed in the
assembly. Nevertheless, The Incorruptible and the Jacobins would be accused of
having sought to transform Paris into a new Sparta76. In this sense, we can say
that antiquity was a fatal attraction for the French Republicans: having been
picked out along with other examples from the present and the past to tame and
legitimize the unprecedented revolutionary undertaking [FIG. 3], it was
rocambolesquely turned into the first causal interpretation of the Revolution and
its most powerful condemnation [FIG. 4].
Fig. 3 (on the left) Maximilien Robespierre. Deputy of the Department of Pas-de-Calais, at the
National Convention: Republicanism kindling his Spirit / makes him, with Courage, hate tyranny /
And the new Rome sees in him a Brutus / A true Republican is recognized by his virtues [Maximil.
Robertspierre. Député du Département du Pas de Calais, à la Convention Nationale: Le
Républicanisme enflammant son Génie / Lui fait avec courage, haïr la tyrannie / Et la nouvelle
Rome, en lui, voit un Brutus / Un vrai Républicain se connoît aux vertus] (Paris, chez Madame
Bergny [1793 or 1794]).
Fig. 4 (on the right) M. J. Maximilien Robespierre: nicknamed the modern Cataline, executed on 10
Thermidor, Year 2 of the Republic [M.J. Maximilien Robespierre: surnommé le Catilina moderne,
éxécuté le 10 Thermidor an 2.e, de la République] (Paris, 1794).
Robespierre, who in November of 1792 swore that he would never fall from
an accusation of tyranny, in his final moments found himself cursing the spectre
of dictatorship:
76
Claude Mossé, L’Antiquité dans la Révolution française, op. cit., pp. 141-153.
17
Daniele di Bartolomeo
However, this word dictature has magical effects; it withers freedom, it debases
government, it destroys the Republic; it degrades all the revolutionary
institutions, which are presented as the work of a single individual; it makes
odious national justice, which it presents as instituted by the ambition of a
single individual; it directs toward this point all the hatred and all the daggers
of fanaticism and the aristocracy. What a terrible use the enemies of the
Republic have made of the name of a Roman magistracy!77
The ancient world imagined by the Revolution, like all stories that people
imagine78, did not exist outside the revolutionaries’ own discourse; but this is
exactly why it became part of the Revolution. The portrait of the ancients to
emerge from the revolutionary debate is first and foremost an invention79. And
yet, classicism was not entirely at the disposal of its demiurges.
Fecha de envío / Submission Date: 5/05/2015
Fecha de aceptación / Acceptance Date: 18/05/2015
77 “Cependant ce mot de dictature a des effets magiques; il flétrit la liberté; il avilit le
gouvernement, il détruit la République; il dégrade toutes les institutions révolutionnaires, qu’on
présente comme l’ouvrage d’un seul homme; il rend odieuse la justice nationale, qu’il présente
comme instituée par l’ambition d’un seul homme; il dirige sur ce point toutes les haines et tous
les poignards du fanatisme et de l’aristocratie. Quel terrible usage les ennemis de la République
ont fait du seul nom d’une magistrature romaine!”: Discours prononcé par Robespierre, à la
Convention nationale, dans la séance du 8 thermidor […] trouvé parmi ses papiers par la commission
chargée de les examiner, in Œuvres de Maximilien Robespierre, 10 vols., Discours, 27 juillet 1793 –
27 juillet 1794, Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 2000, 10, p. 553. On the fall of
Robespierre, see: Françoise Brunel, Thermidor, la chute de Robespierre, 1794, Éditions Complexe,
Bruxelles, 1989 and Peter McPhee, Robespierre: a Revolutionary Life, Yale University Press, New
Haven and London, 2012.
78
Jacques Rancière, Les mots de l’histoire, Seuil, Paris, 1992.
Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1983.
79
18